


Hey man, mama's gotta a gun, saying that our God's a mysterious one

by teaspoonofdoom



Series: body/mind pollution, electro execution [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: (but you'll like it i promise ;), (with the disasterness ascending in that order), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Babs and Grudy/Butch would be functional and Jim, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Every character in this part is bi or pan trust me, F/F, Fire symbolism, Grudges, If I had to align them Lee would be distinguished, Kissing, Murder, Mystery, POV Multiple, Smut, Tabby and Ed would be disasters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:29:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23232493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaspoonofdoom/pseuds/teaspoonofdoom
Summary: Lee faces yet another obstacle in her mission to lead the Narrows out of the gutter, but is she taking the threat to her life seriously enough? Barbara, who is adapting to her new life, and Edward, troubled by his alter-ego, take the matter of finding out who is behind the bombing in their own hands.--Barbara storms into the room."Good God, Lee!" She rushes to her, sighs. Her hands grab at Lee's forearms, run up and down them. "Are you alright?""I'm fine." She, in turn, takes hold of Barbara's elbows. Ed can see her eyes flying over Lee's face, perhaps looking for any signs of harm. It occurs to him then that he may convince her to side with him on the matter. She doesn't like the Narrows any better than he does. Not the place, not the people. What sort of scum tries to kill the only person who cares about them? Bite off the hand that feeds you? Oswald's flunkey was right: the only way to get rid of a stink is to burn it.Lee's face is only half-visible from his position but it seems like she's rolling her eyes."Babs, I'm okay."
Relationships: Barbara Kean & Leslie Thompkins, Barbara Kean/Leslie Thompkins, Edward Nygma & Leslie Thompkins, Solomon Grundy & Edward Nygma
Series: body/mind pollution, electro execution [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/963681
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Hey man, mama's gotta a gun, saying that our God's a mysterious one

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo  
> 2 years flew by but there it is (not that it's finished haha |sorry|)  
> THIS is an [ "I messed up..."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13908966) direct sequel but if you cant be bothered to read it rn and still want to get on with this one (or if you have read it already but have since forgotten what the hell happened) here's a summary of it in the ending notes

Grundy has a hard time putting the scrambled eggs in his mouth without half the forkful falling on the table. On top of it all, his unblinking stare bores into Barbara's skull, to the point where she loses her appetite.

She grabs her cell phone and types out a message under the table. 

_"What happened with you-know-who?? Why am I looking at him right now?"_

Lee puts the frying pan in the washbasin and joins them at the table with a steaming plate of eggs.

"Where's Nygma?" Usually, it's him who makes breakfast (or dinner, for that matter, he is quite the housewife, much more suited for the job than Barbara herself). 

"Out. According to the mirror note." Oh, no, a couple of days ago he had used _her lipstick_ to write "NOT KIDNAPPED. BE BACK BY MORNING - Ed". Barbara couldn't even pick up a fight because he slept in and Lee didn't let her wake him up since, apparently, lately he's had trouble sleeping. Lee, as if aware where her thoughts have led her to, adds: "A sticky note."

"Whew," Barbara exhales overdramatically to show her relief. Lee takes a bite of her food and hands Grundy a napkin. Maybe a baby bib would be a better alternative.

"Do you think he has a secret girlfriend or something?"

"Or boyfriend," Barbara smirks as she steals Lee's cup of coffee. Grundy chokes on his food and Lee has to pound him on the back a few times. Barbara gets up to pour him some water but mostly to avoid his coughs. 

"You okay, big guy?" she asks, which seems to surprise Lee, who is still running her palm over his back and shoulders. Barbara answers her raised eyebrow with the best 'What?!' expression she can will herself to make this early in the morning.

"Grundy fine."

Barbara checks her cell phone. One unread message from Tabitha.

_Nothing. It didn't work._

Tabitha had managed to 'reprogram' Butch in the past. Failing this time should probably be reassuring for Barbara. It means she doesn't have to worry about him trying to get revenge on her. Somehow it isn't.

She and Tabitha are okay now, _okay-er_ at least, and if Butch did come back, maybe Tabitha could convince him all that had happened last year was water under the bridge by now.

She starts washing the dishes, decides she shouldn't worry about what-ifs with a low probability of happening. Lee's warm hand rests on the small of her back as Lee reaches out to put her dirty plate in the basin. Barbara sends her a dirtier look of disapproval. Lee knows it doesn't hold any weight, her eyes wrinkle with a smile.

When she finishes with the dishes, Barbara says: "I'll see you later. The second-hand shops await me."

"Will you need help with the bags?"

"Nope." Barbara looks over her shoulder to see Grundy leaning under the table to pick a fallen napkin off from the ground. She dares to give Lee a quick peck on the cheek.

"See you at the meeting."

  
  


"She's late again!" Ed throws his hands in the air, Grundy grunts, and Lee can't be bothered with Barbara's absence at the moment. Lee had explained to her she could not dress so expensively and then stand by her side when she's trying to make these poor people’s lives better. Barbara wasn't on cloud nine but eventually agreed to sell or give them away. Maybe she had the misfortune of going to a closed second-hand shop, or maybe the owners weren't willing (or able) to buy her old clothes, or maybe she was taking far too long to choose new ones for herself. Doesn't really matter.

"We can start without her."

Ed taps his watch with one finger, perhaps wondering if there's something wrong with it. Last time Lee checked, there were 10 minutes left before the start of the meeting.

"What if she suddenly walks in with coffee and distracts everyone?" Ed's finger is in the air now, to help him make his point.

"I don't see it happening. You just want your coffee quicker," Lee tries with a tease.

"Maybe. She probably got the order wrong anyway." They both laugh. 

"I made you some notes with points you could use for the speech," Ed takes out a few colorful cards from his inside pocket and hands them over to her. "You don't have to, I just-"

"Thank you, Ed. That's very thoughtful of you." She smiles and looks through them. On a blue one it's written: _stealing from the ones as poor as you won't help your situation. If you work together as a community you can improve life in the entire Narrows as well as each of your own._ A red one states _there's power in numbers_. Yellow, _think of the future, the children._ Pink, _need for hospitals and schools_. Orange, purple, green...

Ed had made the effort to write out things he doesn't believe will happen. It's a nice gesture, but Lee knows he doesn't care about the Narrows, the poor, anybody truly. It's fine by her as long as he doesn't preach helplessness to her people. She can't change the way he sees this place, but she's not here for him. She's here for the ones that wake up every day and fight with nails until they lay down. And that have only ever got this to wake up to. She will help them change _this_. 

Grundy looks over the window sill, "They coming."

Lee takes a shaky breath, it's not like this meeting will change everything, but it's her very first and she wants it to go smoothly. She gives the notes back to Ed with another 'thank you' and takes out her flask. Drains nearly all of it as she hears footsteps up the stairs. At the first knock on the door, she shoves it in Ed's hands.

"Hide this." 

He tries to put it in the jacket's inside pocket, it doesn't fit, then between his shirt and suspenders. Tugs the jacket, keeps it in place with one hand and raises a thumb up to Lee with the other.

She lets the people in.

"Hello, Doc."

"Good to see you."

"Thanks for having us."

"Doc, I cannot thank you enough for treating my son."

Lee shakes their hands, pats their shoulders.

"Thank you all for coming. Please, take a seat."

  
  


"Two espressos and two hot chocolates." The waitress raises an eyebrow with a smile. Barbara adds, "To go."

The waitress chuckles, brushes a strand of hair off her eyes, and uncovers a purple bruise on her forehead. Barbara hands her the cash along with a piece of paper, her phone number.

The waitress- Tiffany, says her name tag- puts the four paper cups in a box, places it on the courter and blushes.

"I have a boyfriend."

Barbara hums with a sad but understanding look on her face. Then leans a bit closer and demonstrably touches her own forehead, her stare locked on the waitress' anxious one. Tiffany's eyes are still wide but she closes her fingers over the switchblade discreetly handed to her and nods slowly. Barbara smiles wide and hops out of her chair.

"Have a nice day!"

The door doesn't close after her and she hears the heavy steps of surely more than one man following her into a relatively empty valley.

They don't even try to be subtle after that: whistling, laughing and a distinctive "You free tonight, doll?" behind her back. She stops, turns around.

"No."

"Well, then, dollface... Wallet, watch, jewelry." The man in the middle, overweight, probably tipsy, holds up one hand to signal his friends to stay back.

"Why don't you come and get it, big boy?" She lays the box with the coffee on the ground and takes a step towards him.

In moments like this, she thinks very fondly of Ra's al Ghul and his training. The man tries to land a hit on her but she grabs him by the hand and quickly punches him in the face three times. He falls heavily on the ground by the fourth swing of her fist. The other men are about to jump her when a voice, familiar to her, catches their attention.

No, probably Jim's gun does that.

  
  


The girl in distress turns out to be Barbara Kean and Jim thinks that, maybe, he saved the men from her and not the other way around.

"Barbara."

She smiles at him and raises her hand for a kiss but he shakes it instead.

"Jim." Her eyes narrow as she returns the handshake with a firm hold and an 'accidental' scratch of her nails against his knuckles.

"You're the last person I expected to see here."

"I'm full of surprises." She holds her chin up high, but it's obvious, even to Jim, that her clothes aren't the usual designer ones.

"What are you doing in the Narrows?" He eyes her warily. Normally, he'd ask her if she doing okay but she starts babbling in a cheeky voice.

"I live here. And I opened, re-opened actually, a club recently. You're welcome to-"

She's cut off by an explosion. The building behind him bursting out in flames, car sirens and people screaming.

"Barbara, stay-" Already gone. "Here."

A box with paper coffee cups, one of which spilled out, the only indicator she was ever there.

  
  


"Give me the chance to prove to you that I can turn the Narrows into a place where you don't have to steal from one another to _live_ ," Lee says and one guy stands up, starts clapping. Others follow him, cheering her on. Then they start ducking down because a toy plane, What the Hell?, flies over their heads. 

Grundy runs over to Lee and hits the plane before it can hit her. It explodes just out the window. The explosion is big enough to get rid of, not only them, but a couple of more floors as well.

  
  


Only in the car, with Nygma behind the wheel and Lee on the backseat with him, he remembers her breaking glass against his head, sending him across the room with just one blow. The lack of air, the pain in his ribs. All shoeshine boy insults aside, her shoe heel was too much. He may have not been able to put up a fight against her then, with the Tetch virus making her 'freakishly strong', but how have the tables turned.

"Thank you, Grundy," Lee puts her hand on his knee. "You saved my life."

"All of our lives," adds Nygma, lest they forget about him. Butch tries to smile at her and meet his eyes in the rearview mirror. Feels sick to his stomach.

  
  


"Whoever this was needs to be made an example of. I mean, can't they tell you were trying to help?" Since when does the whiny son of a bitch care about anything but his own neck? Then again, this could be just that. No one is delighted by being almost blown up. It's probably himself and not Lee or the people he worries about.

"Maybe it wasn't one of them." Ah, doctors with hearts of gold, always look for the good in people. Someone may attack them in any sense of the word and they'd still try to help _them _, not themselves. Butch has to suppress a dark chuckle. _Grundy _grunts.____

____"Oh, of course, it was." Self-proclaimed genius-turned-moron, obviously, knows everything. "I just think that maybe the best thing for the Narrows is to burn it to the ground! Start over."_ _ _ _

____Something twitches inside Butch at 'burn'. His new body is immune to most pain. Still, phantom pains come back with memories and being on fire is a fresh wound._ _ _ _

____"Well, that would certainly suit everyone, wouldn't it?" Lee wears a sour expression on her face, fed up with Nygma already. Butch can sympathize._ _ _ _

____"I'm just saying, someone tried to blow you to bits, and I bet they're gonna try it again. So I'm gonna find them, and when I do," Lee is out the door before he finishes his sentence, "Grundy's gonna pull 'em apart, limb by limb!"_ _ _ _

____"Isn't that right, Big Fella?"_ _ _ _

____Yes, pal, right after I finish with you. Just thinking of it makes him fly away somewhere happier. Limb by limb is nice but Edward has only four of them. Butch doesn't want it to happen too quickly-_ _ _ _

____"Hey, Grundy?" Nygma is turned to him now. Boring his eyes into Butch's with mock concern and mild irritation._ _ _ _

____Butch's hands twinge, the left one more so, with anticipation, or as prove there's something not quite right with it._ _ _ _

____"You okay?"_ _ _ _

____He nods weakly, Nygma responds weaker-ly, "Okay," shakes his head and heads out as well._ _ _ _

____Butch hears him sigh on his way out. Then he hears his own scream, feels the pain in his wrist, sees a twisted face, a bony hand reaching for, bringing the axe down._ _ _ _

____"My name is Butch." Sees a more familiar face, almost smells Barbara's anger and shakiness, hears the gunshot, before he feels it. "Butch Gilzean."_ _ _ _

  
  


______ _ _

Lee either hasn't noticed he's following her down the stairs or she's purposefully ignoring him. The "Wait, Lee." is on the tip of his tongue when Barbara storms into the room.

______ _ _

"Good God, Lee!" She rushes to her, sighs. Her hands grab at Lee's forearms, run up and down them. "Are you alright?"

______ _ _

"I'm fine." She, in turn, takes hold of Barbara's elbows. Ed can see her eyes flying over Lee's face, perhaps looking for any signs of harm. It occurs to him then that he may convince her to side with him on the matter. She doesn't like the Narrows any better than he does. Not the place, not the people. What sort of scum tries to kill the only person who cares about them? Bite off the hand that feeds you? Oswald's flunkey was right: the only way to get rid of a stink is to burn it.

______ _ _

Lee's face is only half-visible from his position but it seems like she's rolling her eyes.

______ _ _

"Babs, I'm okay. It didn't explode near me." Objectively wrong. The explosion happened at a close range to all of them. "Grundy hit it and-"

______ _ _

Barbara covers Lee's mouth with hers. Ed gasps. Barbara _is kissing_ Lee. Lee is not _not_ kissing back. He covers his mouth with a hand, takes a step back. His breath is caught in his lungs, his eyes unblinking, lest his lids close too loudly and reveal his lurking. Lee and Barbara aren't really paying anything besides each other attention. Two pairs of hands flying up and down backs, cheeks, necks.

______ _ _

He closes his eyes momentarily. In a way, it's worse than that one night he walked into his parents' bedroom after a very vivid nightmare. He won't get beaten this time around, yet there's this mental slap. When he opens his eyes, the Riddler is standing before him. His hand raised as if he had been the one to hit him across the face.

______ _ _

He leans in to press a kiss to that cheek. His hands roam Ed's shoulders as he walks to stand behind him, leaning on him. Ed doesn't feel any of it. He watches Barbara tilt her head, watches her tongue slide into Lee's mouth, hand inside her shirt.

______ _ _

_What if she did it?_

______ _ _

"Huh? Did what?" The Riddler, listening on his thoughts, hums and asks out loud. It startles Ed because _what if someone hears?_

______ _ _

"Relax, they won't. Now, care to elaborate?" As if he doesn't know what he's thinking.

______ _ _

_What if Barbara did it?_

______ _ _

"Motive?"

______ _ _

_Get rid of us, rule the Narrows, defeat Sofia Falcone, rule Gotham._

______ _ _

"Hm, means?"

______ _ _

_She could, without much trouble, hire someone. I know about the secret bank accounts._

______ _ _

"And the opportunity?"

______ _ _

_She knew we'd be there, we knew she had things to do and it wasn't too suspicious when she didn't show up. Alibi masked as a lucky chance._

______ _ _

"So, she played Lee better than you ever could?" The Riddler laughs.

______ _ _

_Shut up._ It's harder to talk with someone in your head when they don't stay in there.

______ _ _

"What are you going to do about it?"

______ _ _

Ed tiptoes back into the room, the door by some miracle doesn't creak.

______ _ _

Grundy is, by the looks of it, taking a nap on the couch. 

______ _ _

"Hey, hey, buddy, wake up." Ed shakes him by the shoulders. He groans, the way any man does after being woken up, not the way Grundy usually communicates.

______ _ _

"I need a favor, could you do something for me?"

______ _ _

"Um, yes, Grundy help Ed," he yawns.

______ _ _

"I need you to follow Barbara everywhere, okay? And without her noticing. You can do that?"

______ _ _

He nods and Ed wraps his hands around him for a second. "Thank you, Big Guy."

______ _ _

"Aw, you're so cute together I could just eat you up!" The Riddler is sitting cross-legged on the armrest of the couch. Grundy lays down again and dozes off. "What, no kiss goodnight?"

______ _ _

Ed glares daggers at the Riddler. It's not even night. Hopefully, Grundy will wake up in time to catch Barbara before she goes someplace. He takes a sharpie from the table, lifts Grundy's shirt a bit to expose his abdomen and writes a reminder there just in case.

______ _ _

"Wouldn't worry about it. She seems a bit preoccupied at the moment." The Riddler rises his pointer and middle finger until they touch his chin and opens his mouth. Ed looks away and flips him off.

______ _ _

  
  


______ _ _

Kissing Barbara is no longer novelty, doing so while knowing it's not foreplay at the end of a long day that's going to help her and Lee relax is though. The implication that Barbara is ravishing her mouth because she is relieved, was scared for her wellbeing (and to shut her up) is something Lee never imagined would exist. Pushing her off is, too, completely uncommon, it shouldn't be.

______ _ _

Barbara turns from a woman tangled in you, in your clothes, your hair, your limbs, into your business partner in less than four seconds. It gives Lee whiplash but there are unmistakable traces of _her_ lipstick over Barbara's lips that ground her. She takes out a handkerchief to fix the mess over her own as she half-listens to Barbara cursing _the ungrateful motherfuckers_ , as she puts it. 

______ _ _

"Ed has a list of the people that were invited and he probably remembers who showed up and who didn't, if you must know." She hands her the slightly stained handkerchief, "but I know it wasn't any of them."

______ _ _

"Who then?"

______ _ _

Lee shrugs her shoulders, starts to walk away. Why waste time and energy on who? She knows there are people against her. What's more important is how to improve the life down here. 

______ _ _

"I'll go take a shower." She should do the laundry while she's at it. Parts of the blown up building and the dirt from the wall Barbara had pressed her against covering her clothes and hair.

______ _ _

  
  


______ _ _

She doesn't do the laundry after showering, not too keen on interrupting Ed and Barbara as they argue over whether the bomber was a gang banger or the operation was orchestrated by the rival turfs.

______ _ _

Lee chooses to go to the main area to try and clear her head. _Of course_ , Grundy has fallen asleep on the couch there. She falls into the matching red armchair and swigs stale beer from one of the bottles left on the table. His soft snorts are not so distracting as she feared they'd be. 

______ _ _

He mumbles something sounding ominous like "-Aby, please, no" and while Lee doesn't know Butch's life story to a T, there was obviously something going on between him and Galavan. Barbara ended it, Lee knows. And it ended her, she claims.

______ _ _

Something falls and breaks on the ground on the upper floor and Ed and Barbara's voices keep rising. Grundy rolls over on the couch and one of its legs gives in under his weight. He doesn't seem to notice.

______ _ _

If someone had told Lee ten or fifteen years ago that one day she would share her apartment, her life with two supposedly dead people and a man previously frozen in a block of ice, she would have asked them if the drug they're on designer or regular one.

______ _ _

She stands up and gets a hold of some harder liquor. Takes it to the private office.

______ _ _

  
  


______ _ _

Ed goes through a half-a-minute heart attack when he can't find Lee. She's not in the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, not on the ground floor, not in the bar-

______ _ _

He dials her number and her phone rings from the office. She rarely uses it, prefers the open room, the desk facing the people, but he should have checked there anyway. 

______ _ _

Lee must have heard him coming because she invites him in before he gets to knock.

______ _ _

Some papers are spread out messily on the desk and even from the door, Ed notices wet glass marks over some of them. Lee, at first frowning at them, now looks up and leans back in the chair.

______ _ _

Ed takes a few steps into the room, shifting his weight between one leg and the other, as she holds his graze unblinkingly, perhaps not to invite him to look at the papers any longer or to ask a question without speaking a word.

______ _ _

"Roxanne claims Virgil poisoned one of her dogs." Ed delivers smoothly. "Wants the damages either in cash or him doing all her shippings for at least two weeks."

______ _ _

"Tell her," Lee thinks for a moment, "that without proof we're not prosecuting anyone with anything."

______ _ _

"I wouldn't put it beyond Virgil to-"

______ _ _

"Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, Ed. Tell Roxanne also that if the dog was old, I'd settle for a single week."

______ _ _

If it turns out the dog was young and Virgil did poison in, Lee'll expect him to help her out in the clinic for a while, on top of whatever Roxanne decides for herself, Ed's sure. A part of him wishes Virgil would refuse, just so he and Grundy would have a little wicked fun with him.

______ _ _

It seems the conversation is ending, on any other day he'd ask "How is Roxanne supposed to prove it was poison?", Lee would point out he was in forensics and if he cares so much about it, could help her. Today they're both far too tired. He probably won't even bet with Barbara on who's lying.

______ _ _

  
  


______ _ _

Lee's sitting in Barbara's lap, or hovering over it, with her knees on either side of Barbara's hips. Was she wearing a skirt when she came back? It rides up her thighs as she spreads her legs some more. Lee's grateful for the access but she won't have any room for her own legs on the spinning chair if they keep on going like that.

______ _ _

The bones of Barbara's wrist creak as she twists it to get deeper into Lee's pants. She puffs and is about to complain, Lee knows, so she shuts her up with a kiss. Payback. 

______ _ _

Once she breaks away, Barbara chases after her, nearly pushing her off the chair. Lee's free hand grabs the armrest, her mouth maps the skin from Barbara's collarbone up to behind her ear, her fingers move quickly in, then out. Barbara's are drawing circles.

______ _ _

Her breasts rise and fall, with breathy moans out of her mouth, Lee lets go of the armrest to run her hand over them, arms reaching down in the way - both hers and Barbara's. It's as difficult as it's worth it.

______ _ _

Barbara pushes against her again, this time her other hand presses to Lee's lower back to keep her in place. Then moves lower.

______ _ _

Lee recalls her saying, not half an hour ago, " _You almost died_ sex is the best kind out there, with sex in public places as a close second.", remembers rolling her eyes and laughing.

______ _ _

Barbara manages to tug her pants a centimeter downward and the zipper surely must be digging into her skin be she's relentless in her pushing. Lee is this close to agreeing to take them off halfway.

______ _ _

But then Grundy stumbles into the room.

______ _ _

Immediately Lee slips her hand out. Climbs off of Barbara's lap, discreetly cleaning her fingers on the chair's ratty fabric. Barbara doesn't remove her own hand, perhaps thinking of how hard it had bee getting it there."Relax, babe, it's only Grundy. No one upstairs, remember?" The bratty woman crooks her fingers at that and looks over Lee's shoulder at Grundy, kisses along that shoulder.

______ _ _

Lee shudders, but tears away from her. Heat rising to her face, she turns the spinning chair so Barbara is not facing the doorway anymore.

______ _ _

"Y-yes, Grundy? What it is?"

______ _ _

"Um... Grundy worried 'bout Lee. Grundy protect Lee and Bar-bara. Grundy protect, Ed find bad guys. Grundy punish bad guys."

______ _ _

"Heartwarming." The eye-roll is audible in Barbara's deadpan voice.

______ _ _

"It really is, Grundy! So glad I've got you on my side. Want to have lunch?" Sharing a meal with Grundy definitely won't get him in Barbara's good graces, but the food may distract her just a little bit from the sex-deprivation. 

______ _ _

_Pass_ , Barbara mouths just as her phone starts ringing and she's quickly making her exit. "On the corner of East Garth Willow? Okay, on my way."

______ _ _

Grundy's glued at the door even as she pushes past him. "Uh, not hungry. Ed said Grundy guard outside."

______ _ _

Lee sighs, knowing he listens to Ed before he listens to anyone else, including himself.

______ _ _

  
  


______ _ _

"Someone tried to dethrone your queen!" 

______ _ _

_Wouldn't surprise me if it was them, you know. The filthy bratrats._

______ _ _

"The future of the Narrows depends upon you, loyal soldiers, greatest spies."

______ _ _

_A-ha-ha! Oh, Eddie, I marvel at you. To say that with a straight face._

______ _ _

So what if the Narrows have no future, as it has no present? So what if these kids are barely loyal to their own parents...

______ _ _

"Whoever finds out who wants to destroy Lee Thompkins will receive a complete set of encyclopedias. Minus the T." 

______ _ _

_Don't say it as if little you wouldn't have traded our parents for, well, just the T._

______ _ _

I- 

______ _ _

_Shh, they're not you... Win them over._

______ _ _

"Plus 20 bucks."

______ _ _

Bra-vo, Smarty!

______ _ _

"The only hunch we have is that a toy plane was used to execute this assassination, so use your age as an advantage."

______ _ _

  
  


______ _ _

Luckily enough, East Garth Willow is three blocks away from Barbara's home. She gives herself credit for getting there as fast as she does but Tiffany doesn't seem so beholden. She's frantic, crouching behind the garbage can, where her boyfriend's -or ex-boyfriend's now- body lays on the ground, the switchblade sticking out from the center of his chest, her eyes move with the speed of sound.

______ _ _

Barbara is pleasantly surprised at the remoteness of the street. No cars parked around, no windows in condition, no shops. The lack of actual witnesses doesn't calm Tiffany's nerves and she keeps looking at every corner. Barbara crouches down beside her, takes her shoulders in her hands.

______ _ _

"It's over. It's fine." Tiffany trembles all over. Takes a shaky breath, closes her eyes, exhales slowly. 

______ _ _

All good, but their time is running. Barbara never understood the whole fuss over the first murder, how it shocked people to their core. Then again, she had been drugged out of her mind, at the time of hers. Everybody knows there's something out there powerful enough to make them snap, don't they? She has known. She patiently waited for that moment. "We need to set your story straight and go through it a couple of times."

______ _ _

Tiffany had probably never dared dream about it. "Just a moment." She stares at the guy's blood leaking out of his body, slowly now. Leaking out and into the sewer. _Poetic_ , thinks Barbara, _he gets to transform into his true self._

______ _ _

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS FOR (or WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED IN) the first fic:  
> Barbara went to the Narrows and convinced Lee to be business partners (and bedfellows;) )  
> Edward was real-pissed about it, but couldn't do much. Not for a lack of trying.  
> Tabitha may or may not have realized she hasn't gotten over Barbara and the way she dealt with that was to beat Grundy to get Butch back.  
> Also: Cherry's club is now Lee's in name, Selina shows up twice, Lee is the only one to particularly care about the Narrows, but the others help her with her doings and she's trying to help them as well just because she's that good of a person (remember Barbara and Edward have fucked her over in the past)
> 
> [the tittles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdHg8LFKYWw)  
> [my tumblr ](https://teaspoonofdread.tumblr.com/) :3  
> There will be 2 more chapters to this part of the series  
> aand at least one more work in it (probably more)
> 
> Comments mean the world to me and thank you very much for reading!!!  
> 


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